The officer-in- charge of Tollygunge police station has been shunted out even as three more persons have been arrested today in connection with the assault on police personnel at the police station on Sunday night.
Mr Anup Ghosh, O-C of Tollygunge police station has been transferred with immediate effect today. Lalbazar sources said his transfer was only a matter of time after he was show caused by the commissioner of police, who was not satisfied with the reply that the O-C had given. He has been shifted to the Detective Department (DD), Lalbazar.
The O-C, South Port police station, will replace Mr Ghosh at `Tollygunge police station. The charge against the OC of the said police station was that he had flouted “standard operation procedure”(SOP) by keeping silent on the whole incident, as he failed to intimate his superiors about what happened at the police station and his reasons for remaining inactive despite police personnel being at the mercy of mob fury.
With three more in the police net, the number of arrested persons stood at seven, with four of them being arrested yesterday. The police picked up three more after a night-long raid on Tuesday night from the Metelibagan slum area at Chetla.
The three arrested have been identified as Akash Basu, Ranajoy Haldar and Akshay. All the three are the members of notorious Putul Naskar gang who, the police said, is behind Sunday night’s siege at Tollygunge police station and the assault on the constable.
All the seven arrested so far have been slapped with cases under Section 332 ~ voluntarily causing hurt to public servant from discharging his duty and Section 353 ~ assault and criminal force to deter public servant from discharging his duty of the IPC, a senior officer at Lalbazar said. All the seven accused have been remanded to police custody till 17 August by the court. Two heavyweight ministers of the ruling party, meanwhile, had differing things to say about the Tollygunge incident.
The party secretary general and state education minister Mr Partha Chatterjee flayed the incident, saying that such an incident was not desirable neither for administration nor for conducting election.
“The way the police had been attacked by a group of people inside a police station, does not speak of a good administration. Again this sort of incident does not look good for free and fair elections. Running an administration and conducting free and fair polls are a completely different ball game altogether. Because should the administration not deal with such an act of hooliganism inside a police station with an iron hand, it will have a negative bearing on the administration and recurrence likely to follow,” asserted Mr Chatterjee.
Mr Firhad Hakim, mayor and state municipal affairs minister, while speaking to newspersons on the Tolygunge police assault case said, “The Tollygunge incident is a stray one. There are criminals everywhere. The police administration is there. It is doing their duty. The law will take its own course. No one is above the law. Whoever is involved in the incident will be taken to task by the police.”
Asked to comment on his cabinet colleague and party secretary general’s assertion, the mayor said, “I don’t know what Mr Chatterjee had said. As far as I am concerned, the administration is working according to the law. You see the arrests are being made. The administration must act sternly to create a deterrence. A strong administration will instill faith in people, so that that can be translated into vote during election.”
Earlier, stung by the wide spread criticism after remaining silent for more than 30 hours in the face of a mob fury in which a constable of the Tollygunge police station was assault, the police finally stirred into action yesterday as they picked up four persons allegedly involved on Sunday night’s onslaught.